Who Pays When Generation Fails? Cross-Border Effects of Swedish Nuclear Outages

Erik Lundin ()
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Erik Lundin: Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Postal: Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden, https://www.ifn.se/en/researchers/ifn-researcher/erik-lundin/

No 1556, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: I estimate the cross-border effects of Swedish nuclear outages using hourly data on day-ahead prices, generation, and consumption across 15 bidding zones in Northern Europe from 2021 to 2024. I exploit unplanned outages as exogenous variation in nuclear supply and find that a 1 GW reduction in Swedish nuclear capacity increases the day-ahead price in the SE-Stockholm bidding zone by approximately 28 percent (17 EUR/MWh). Although less precisely estimated, prices in Finland, Denmark, and the Baltics increase by about 12–13 EUR/MWh. In Norway, contemporaneous price effects are largely offset by increased hydro generation, implying an intertemporal displacement of costs as reservoir levels decline. Since short-run demand is approximately inelastic within the relevant price range, changes in consumer surplus are well approximated by the price change multiplied by the quantity consumed. Abstracting from dynamic effects due to hydro substitution, Swedish consumers bear approximately half of the total short-run loss in consumer surplus, with Finland accounting for the largest share among neighboring countries.

Keywords: Nuclear power; Electricity markets; Cross-border externalities; Generation adequacy; Market integration; EUPHEMIA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F15 H25 L94 Q48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2026-03-24
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